


Got a Taste For the Cherry

by metaphasia



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8345095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphasia/pseuds/metaphasia
Summary: Rory was expecting a summer in Washington, DC. Rory was expecting a summer away from her relationships and drama, a chance to sort out her feelings. Rory was right on only one out of the three.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theapolis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theapolis/gifts).



> AU from the end of I Can't Get Started (2.22).

Rory tried not to let her sour mood spoil the reception. Aside from her own drama with Dean and Jess, she was sure something was up with her mother as well; Lorelai had seemed just as distracted and dazed as she did. It was possible Christopher had done something to upset her again; she hadn't been able to locate her dad anywhere during the reception, so the probability that he had flaked out and disappeared, again, was disappointingly high. That was just one more thing to wallow about however, on top of her own drama. She couldn't believe that she had actually kissed Jess when she saw him. She had been just high on euphoria at the time, and regretted it now. Not so much the kiss itself, as the fact that she had kissed Jess while she was with Dean. What was wrong with her? At least the trip to Washington over the summer with Paris would give her the chance to escape from Stars Hollow, and all the drama that her life there entailed.  
Rory was actually managing to enjoy herself, twirling around the dance floor with Lane a couple hours into the reception, when she felt someone come up behind her and tap her on the back. Michel was standing there, with his Number Six Exasperated Face (the "I have done nothing sufficiently wrong to deserve what is happening to me, and if you knew what it was you would agree", as opposed to his Number Five Exasperated Face of "I have done nothing sufficiently wrong to deserve what is happening to me, and if you knew what it was you would not think it was a big deal").  
"It is for you," Michel said, and held out the cordless phone from the reception desk to her.  
Rory took the phone from him gingerly, and watched him walk off in a huff. "Hello?" she asked into the line.  
"Rory," she heard the very distinctive voice of Paris speak. Ah, an appropriate use of the Number Six Exasperated Face. Rory waited a moment for Paris to continue speaking, but all she heard was faint breathing over the line. Now that she thought about it, Paris hadn't sounded like her usual fiercely competitive self.  
"Rory," Paris repeated herself, then coughed before continuing to speak in the same dead monotone. "It appears that we received bad polling data. Clearly, Madeline and Louise must have failed at taking representative sampling, I knew I should never have trusted them to accurately take random selections of our classma - "  
"Paris," Rory cut her friend off before she could too far into her monologue. "What are you saying?"  
"We lost, Rory," Paris said. "I don't know how, but we lost the election."  
_Well_ , Rory thought to herself, the phone falling away from her ear, _so much for Washington, DC_.  
  
\---  
  
Rory jerked awake in an instant, not sure why she was suddenly awake. A quick glance at the clock showed it was entirely too early in the morning for a weekend. She settled herself back down into her bed, ready to get back to sleep, when she heard a tapping on her window. Rory groaned into her pillow, and debated just lifting it over her head to ignore whoever was there and hope they would go away and come back at a more reasonable hour and blood caffeine concentration, but the insistent tapping finally forced her to get up. Stumbling over to the window, she was glad she had taken a slightly longer nighttime  
  
routine after the wedding, so that she was more presentable than she normally was after waking up. Pushing aside the curtains, she groaned.  
Sitting outside her window was Paris, with her face full of determination.  
Knowing that delaying would only serve to make Paris more irritable, Rory popped the lock and slid the window up. Paris quickly pushed a messenger bag into her arms, and motioned for her to stand back.  
"What's up, Paris?" Rory asked, as Paris grabbed the sill and pulled herself in.  
"I spent all afternoon and night working on it," Paris said, as she grabbed the bag back from Rory, and pulled out a binder. "I made a lot of phone calls and called in a few favors and argued a few deadheads down, but I finally figured out a plan. I know you were as looking forward to the trip to Washington as I was, so I included you in the accommodations as well."  
"Paris, what are you talking about?" Rory asked again, her mind still not firing on all cylinders yet, and hoping for some coffee.  
"I got us both counselor positions at Camp Firefly for the summer. It's one of the most exclusive summer camps in the country. The kids who go there are the children of politicians and influential business executives. The director of the camp is a very well known name in the sorts of circles that the Ivy League admissions officers are in. If we do a good enough job here, we can get a very powerful recommendation letter for college. Same time frame as when we would have been in Washington."  
_Well_ , Rory thought to herself, pulling Paris into the kitchen so she could finally alleviate her need for coffee, _it looked like her summer plans were back on_.  
  
\---  
  
Paris prided herself on being good at everything she attempted. It wasn't enough for her to just do things, she had to excel. She had to be the best at everything she did. However, nothing had prepared her for the latest undertaking she was performing, and she was ashamed to admit that she had finally met her match. Nothing in her extensive history of clubs, activities, classwork and volunteering had prepared her for what she was trying to do.  
Paris squared her shoulders, and turned back from the blackboard to the classroom full of little kids staring at her intently as she attempted to explain how to make a macaroni art mosaic.  
"Right," she continued her explanation, having had her train of thought derailed from the intense stares the little kids were giving her. "Orientation. That is the most important aspect of the macaroni sculpture. You have to make sure that the pieces of macaroni all align in the same direction, so that they form smooth lines and contours, which will allow them to form a more aesthetically pleasing picture."  
Paris paused for a breath, wracking her brain for something intelligible to say about the process of making artwork so minimalist the impressionists would have called unfinished, in a media that consisted of uncooked wheat dough in tubular shapes. It didn't help that she was surrounded by small children, which was pushing her anxiety to levels previously only reached during finals. After giving a few more equally useless pieces of general advice, she started to walk around the room, providing generic sounding platitudes to the children she approached, and trying to maintain her patience, despite the fact that the clock seemed to never advance.  
  
\---  
  
Rory stumbled back into the counselor's cabin that she was sharing with Paris, bruised and burnt. Despite regularly applying sunscreen, she had still managed to pick up some burning on her upper body. The regular games of volleyball and water polo that she had had to intervene in due various safety hazards (seriously, what kids thought it was a good idea to throw each other at the ball to gain a reach advantage?) had caused the bruising. Paris was already inside, collapsed on top of her bed, face buried in her pillow, hands clenching swaths of the sheets underneath her into fists.  
"Wow," Rory said, taking in Paris' appearance, "Your first day went that well too, huh?"  
"Children," Paris mumbled into her pillow, "Are aggravating. I don't understand them at all. I can't remember ever being as incompetent at basic skills as these kids were today."  
"Tell me how you really feel," Rory said, shuffling over to her dresser and pulling out the aloe vera lotion to try and soothe her shoulders until she took a shower later that night.  
Paris rolled over in bed and caught Rory's eye in the mirror hanging over her dresser. “We need to prepare, Rory,” she said, with her usual intensity returning to her. “Today was an unqualified disaster, not just for me, but I think for both of us. If we are going to have this summer be a sufficient success that we can get the director of the camp to write us both letters of recommendation, then we need to do some serious research and figure out how to get these kids to pay attention to us.”

Rory sighed, and turned around to look straight at Paris. “How do you think we can research? We have no cell reception and no computers. There isn't a library anywhere near, so it's not even like we can look at any books on the subject.”

Paris was already shaking her head as soon as Rory finished speaking. “There's a computer with an internet connection in the counselors' lounge. We can pull up information on working with kids there. Come on, we have an hour or so before dinner.”

Rory groaned; she had been looking forward to getting a quick nap in to recuperate before she had to do anything. But Paris was right; if a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well, and it wasn't just their future college plans on the line; this was also for the benefit of the kids that they were responsible for.  
  
\---  
  


It was nearing midnight on the third day since Paris had convinced Rory to start researching how to help them interact with the younger kids who were attending the camp. That research had subsumed both of their free time, and then when they had started to get a better idea for how to relate to the kids, they had transitioned their research into creating new activities and finding ways to spice up the existing activities they were having the kids do.

They had taken over the computer during their free time before dinner, and had staked it out afterwards, when everyone else was heading to sleep. They still had to do regular nightly patrols, but by alternating who went, instead of either of them taking a night off, they were able to get even more work done. Rory had always thought that she and Paris worked well together on the various projects they had been assigned together at school, but their new close quarters and isolation were really pushing the two of them to levels of synergy they hadn't ever reached previously. Rory was able to figure out what Paris was looking for and thinking even before she said anything, and Paris was equally as adept at reading Rory's intentions. They had already come up with several improvements to how the camp was being run that they had suggested to the director, who had been enthusiastic about implementing them.

Rory was currently writing down their most recent set of ideas while Paris had headed out to walk around the camp for their eleven o'clock rounds, and make sure none of the kids in their section were sneaking out of their cabins. She had gotten lost in her work when she heard the door open, and turned around to check who it was.

And when she saw Paris walk in the door, she froze. Maybe it was a trick of the lighting, maybe it was the late hour, but when she saw Paris, she was stunned. Despite not having changed anything about her appearance since she had left, Paris was _stunning_. The light was reflecting off her hair in a way that made her usual blonde hair look like it had streaks of all different colors in it. As she sat there and stared, Paris looked at her with growing concern.

“What?” Paris said, “Is there something wrong with my hair?” Paris slowly started to comb through her hair nervously.

“No,” Rory said, and cleared her throat when she realized how odd her voice sounded. “No, it's fine. Sorry, I'm just a little tired.”

“Oh,” Paris said, and came back over near Rory. “Maybe we should just call it for the night and pick back up tomorrow. We have been working very hard, we can take a break tonight.”

“Yeah,” Rory said, “That may be a good idea.”

As they both packed up their notes and cleaned up the lounge, Rory was preternaturally aware of Paris' location. It seemed like every move that Paris made was imprinting itself on her mind, and every time they brushed against each other, it sent electric zaps up spine. She wasn't sure what was going on with herself, but she had to get it under control. She had come out to the summer camp with Paris to avoid her relationship problems from having been interested in two different people, and this was the exact opposite of that solving that problem. Not to mention the fact that until this night, she had been sure that she was completely straight.

 _Well_ , Rory thought to herself, _this just complicated the summer_.

  
\---  
  
Rory looked at the river nervously. She knew she didn't have anything to actually worry about, that it was a simple rafting trip and there were no rapids or rocks for any of the canoes to get stuck on or capsized by. Rory was still impressed that Paris had managed to talk the director into an all day excursion that would take place completely off the camp grounds, with busing the kids out to the top of the river early in the morning and their probably only getting back to the lake that the camp was on by dinner time, if their estimation of the pace of the campers at canoeing was accurate.

Aside from the nerves of having to kayak down a river when she was not the most athletic person, and having to watch out for any of the campers running into trouble, there was the fact that she would be stuck in a small boat with Paris for the entire day. Rory had tried her hardest to make sure that none of the strange attraction she had been feeling for Paris had shown, and she thought she had been mostly successful, but Paris had been giving her increasingly weird looks as she figured out that Rory was hiding something. However, it had been getting harder and harder both to hide her feelings to Paris and also to herself.

“Everyone in!” Paris shouted from next to her, and the campers began pushing their canoes into the river and setting off. Another pair of counselors was steering a canoe at the front of the swarm, making sure that no one was getting too far ahead of the pack, while Paris and she were tasked with being the last canoe in the water, in case anyone fell behind and got lost.

The next few hours were fairly uneventful, as the fleet of canoes made its way downstream. Around noon, however, when they were at a bend in the river, they ran into problems. One of the other canoes had tried to take the turn too tightly, and had gotten stuck in some weeds under the water, which had wrapped around their boat. Rory and Paris steered their canoe close, but left a fair amount of room so that they would also not get trapped. They shared a quick look, and with that and just a few gestures, it was enough to let Rory know Paris' plan; that Paris would swim over and pull their canoe loose of the reeds, while Rory would stick in their canoe, stop it from drifting away or capsizing, and wait in case she needed help.

Paris dove in, and swam over to the other canoe, and that was when things went wrong. One of the kids in the boat was swinging their paddle at the reeds on the other side, trying to knock them loose, and pulled too hard, slipped and the paddle went flying over their head. Which wouldn't have been a problem, except that Paris was just surfacing next to the canoe at that moment.

Rory looked on in horror as the paddle came down, and hit Paris squarely in the head, and she slipped beneath the water.

“Paris!” Rory screamed, and then dove in the water after her. It couldn't have been more than a few moments to swim the short distance to get to Paris, but it felt like an eternity to Rory, until she grabbed her and hauled her back up to the surface. Once they breached the surface, Paris started spluttering and Rory breathed a sigh of relief that Paris was okay.

Together then, they quickly made short work of the remaining reeds still holding the canoe, while Paris kept up a stream of berating towards the kids regarding their carelessness. Normally, Rory would have intervened on behalf of the kids, since no one deserved a full Paris rant, but she couldn't bring herself to this time, not when their error could have cost Paris her life. Finally, the canoe was freed, and the kids swiftly started paddling downstream, eager to get away from Paris' scolding. Once they started to move out of view, Paris turned to Rory, and her expression quickly shifted from anger to confusion and fright.

“Rory?” Paris, asked, “Oh god, are you alright? You look terrible. Don't tell me she managed to hit you too.”

“Me?” Rory exclaimed, half in disbelief. “I'm not worried about me, you're the one with a head wound.”

“Oh, don't worry,” Paris said, bringing her hand up to her head to check herself. “Head wounds always bleed a lot, it looks much worse than it is.”

“That's not the point of concern, Paris,” Rory said, trying to keep her voice level, to communicate in a way that Paris would understand. “I saw you go under the water, and I got so worried, I thought you were, you were ...” Rory slowly trailed off.

“Oh,” Paris said quietly, and began treading water slightly closer to Rory, to reassure her. But when Paris got within arm's length, Rory couldn't hold herself back anymore, couldn't deny the feelings that had been building inside of her for weeks now, and reached out and pulled Paris into a tight hug.

“Umm,” Paris said as she tensed up. “There, there? I know we're good friends, but -”

And Rory couldn't let her finish that sentence, couldn't let her define their relationship as something less than what she was desperate for it to be, and so she closed the last bit of distance between them and kissed Paris firmly on the lips.

“Oh,” Paris said again, still quietly when they finally broke apart.

Rory was terrified; she had kissed Paris just like she had kissed Jess those few weeks earlier, in a bundle of emotions, and so she tried to back away, to run, somehow.

But as she tried to pull away, Paris gripped her tight, and pulled her back in to facing her. “Oh,” Paris said again, this time with an entirely different emotion behind it.

And then they were kissing again, and this time it wasn't Rory who started it.  
  
\---  
  


Rory leaned into the fire in front of her. The air was finally cooling off enough now that the summer was coming to a close that the heat was welcome, in addition to the tradition of it. She glanced across the flickering flames at Paris handing out marshmallows to kids. Since the rafting trip, the summer had been even better than she could have imagined, but it was almost time for them to head back to the real world. And when she did, she knew what would be waiting for her in Stars Hollow; both Dean and Jess would be expecting her to talk to her when she came back. She wasn't sure where this relationship with Paris would go, but she was certain that what she had had with Paris was so much more intense than anything she had felt for either Dean or Jess.

Paris chose that moment to come over and sit next to her, and Rory shifted, so that she was leaning against her, offering the blanket that she had covered herself with to Paris.

Once they were snuggled in together, Rory whispered into Paris' ear, “I really like this.”

“The campfire, or the being together?” Paris asked her, turning slightly so that her voice wouldn't carry past Rory.

“They're both nice, but it was the being together that I meant,” Rory said. She braced herself, then continued. “You know, the summer is almost over, and we're going to have to head back to Connecticut soon.”  
“Yeah,” Paris said, and Rory could feel her giving her a questioning look.

“Well, it's been great being together, just the two of us, but when we go back, we're going to have to deal with the reactions of people we know,” Rory said, and Paris slowly froze next to her as she spoke.

“What are you saying?” Paris asked, now very still.

“Well, I mean, what do you think Madeline and Louise will say? Or any of our other friends at Chilton? Or our parents?” Rory asked.

“Are you saying you want to stop seeing each other like this?” Paris asked, her voice quickly moving to hurt and anger.

“No!” Rory insisted, as quietly as she could to stop others from overhearing, but still firmly. “God no, that's the last thing I want to do. I just want to make sure you're okay with it. It's going to be a lot of pressure. So, are you? Going to be okay with it, I mean.”

Paris looked mollified, and sat for a few moments, pondering. “I realize that it probably will be rather challenging. Dating is hard enough, let alone with the added social stigma associated. But, I don't think that's the right question for us to be asking ourselves.”

It was Rory's turn to give Paris a questioning look now.

“I think the real question is how certain we are about this. Not whether we can deal with the problems that others are going to make for us, but whether it's going to be worth it. And yes, I think it will be.”

Paris paused, and then continued. “What about you? Do you think it's worth it?”

And, just like that, Paris managed to once again turn Rory's entire world upside down. A smile slowly broke out across her face, and Paris gradually reciprocated as she realized Rory's answer without her having to say a word.

 _Well_ , Rory thought to herself, _the future just got a whole lot more interesting_.

 


End file.
